The Bechdel Test Boom

The Bechdel Test has been a useful tool for those of us who want to see more positive portrayals of women in media. It is a quick and easy way to get viewers to think about gender representation, by applying one simple criteria: do two female characters at any point in the story talk to each other about something other than a male character? Originally conceived by cartoonist Alison Bechdel back in the '80s, it has been a good way to point out not just the gender imbalance between male and female characters, but the relative weakness of female roles, the lack of agency, and the lack of character development. There have since been several alternate versions that add extra criteria, or use racial minorities or LGBT characters instead.

Of course the Bechdel test was never perfect, and was best applied to groups or types of movies to show systemic issues, rather than to single out individual ones for bad practices. "12 Angry Men" doesn't pass the test because all the characters are male out of necessity. "Gravity" doesn't pass because though Sandra Bullock gets the majority of the screen time, she spends most of it alone, with no one to talk to. But "Sucker Punch" passes in spite of its sexed up and exploitative main characters. Sure, it was fun to argue about technicalities like whether the Uhura and Gaila exchange near the beginning of the "Star Trek" reboot technically counted with Gaila's half of the conversation all about distracting from the fact that she was hiding a half-naked Captain Kirk in the room, but it makes a much stronger point to look at the big blockbuster action genre as a whole, which has been notoriously poor in its treatment of female characters.

The test has been doing its job though, getting more people to talk about gender issues in media and calling out creators. In some cases applying the Bechdel Test can be very helpful. There was a lot of good chatter about "Pacific Rim," for instance, which had a grand total of two named female characters who never exchanged words. Mako was certainly a good female character, but stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of male technicians, scientists, military personnel, criminals, politicians, and all but one other pilot. And if we have to argue about whether the giant robot's AI voiced by Ellen McLain counts as a character, that's pretty damning. So does this mean that Guillermo Del Toro sexist? As the director who made "Pan's Labyrinth," of course not. But he clearly got stuck in the mindset that so many other filmmakers have, that certain types of stories aren't the typical domain of women and girls, and left them on the sidelines.

On the other hand, I'm not sure what to make of the recent news that a small group of Swedish cinemas are going to give out a new category of movie ratings based on the Bechdel test, with the support of the Swedish Film Institute. As far as I can tell this is completely voluntary and aimed at raising more awareness toward gender equality issues in media. Activists and private companies rather than the Swedish government are behind this, and there's been no talk of instituting any kind of real, binding standards on new movies based on the Bechdel test. However, I'm still skeptical how much good this is going to do. The Bechdel test, as I've discussed, is a good conversation starter but not all that accurate or informative. It can be wildly inconsistent as to which movies pass and which don't. Surely there are better ways to grade movies for gender equality than this?

On the other hand, the announcement has already touched off a lot of discussion among film fans around the globe. There's been a lot of outrage, of course, but there's also been a lot of more serious, thoughtful conversation. A lot of people only learned what the Bechdel Test was this week, and are still processing and reacting to it. And so we have more people asking some fundamental questions: why is it that horror movies are so much better at passing the test than action movies? Why is is that superhero movies like "Man of Steel" and "The Avengers" fail so much more often? Why is television so much better at gender equality than the movies these days?

And once you start to ask those questions, then maybe we can talk about improving the landscape. We can talk about why girl-positive movies like "The Hunger Games" are so important and why so many people want a "Wonder Woman" movie. And maybe J.J. Abrams will keep the test in mind while he's writing that next "Star Wars" installment. And maybe Disney and Marvel will greenlight that Black Widow movie someday.

Or at least discuss the possibility.
---